The damages award to Spin Master reflects profits for infringement along with attorney’s fees, legal expenses and the bad faith of the defendant.
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The court found that online and offline sales data presented by Spin Master was verified by sources including Guangzhou Lingdong’s invoice records with the city tax bureau.
The defendant in the case failed to submit any records of profit from sales of the accused products and provided the court with no proper reason as to its inability to provide this data.
The Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court did not dispute the compensation claim brought by Spin Master, finding that its claim was based upon a wide purchasing campaign conducted both online and offline as well as financial data including sales data from e-commerce platforms and margins in the toy industry.
While the defendant argued that the accused Eonster Hunter toys did not transform to reveal a human character as limited by claim 1 of the asserted Chinese patent, the court found that one skilled in the art would understand the claim language more broadly to cover fictitious character shapes as well. In concluding that the Guangzhou toys infringed upon the Spin Master claims at issue in the infringement action, the court found that the accused products were rollable, included interior components concealed from exterior view and had a magnetically responsive body that operated according to the embodiment in Spin Master’s patent specification. Spin Master’s suit against Guangzhou Lingdong targeted 20 toys in the defendant’s line of Eonster Hunter toys. The technology is incorporated into Spin Master’s rollable Bakugan toys, which transform into anime-themed gaming monsters when the transformation means is triggered by an external magnetic force. Suzhou Court Finds Infringement of Bakugan Toy PatentĪs an equivalent patent issued by the European Patent Office shows, Spin Master’s Chinese patent asserted in this suit protects a toy with an exterior structure that transforms from a first rollable state to a second state through the use of a transformation means utilizing magnetic force to release interior and exterior locking portions that otherwise maintain the toy in its rollable state.
The court awarded damages of 15 million RMB ($2.2 million USD), the largest damages award ever awarded by a Chinese court to a foreign patent owner. The decision from the Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court found that defendant Guangzhou Lingdong Creative Culture Technology’s line of accused “Eonster Hunter” products infringed upon Spin Master patent claims covering the company’s line of Bakugan rollable transforming toys. On April 20, international IP firm Rouse announced the positive results of a patent infringement case brought in Chinese courts on behalf of Spin Master, a Canadian children’s toy and entertainment firm. “While Spin Master’s strong defenses of its IP rights in the toy sector are notable, the increasing willingness of Chinese courts to vindicate the rights of foreign patent owners is doubtlessly the more significant aspect of this news.”
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